Intro to Express

Motivation (Why?)

Express is an unopinionated server-side javascript MVC framework that runs on a NodeJS server. It is a very, very popular and trending framework with a bevy of modules you can add to it.

Analogy (What?)

Think of web frameworks like you are building your own computer.

Node is like the microprocessor and Express is like the motherboard of a computer and you can plug in more stuff to Express, for example any memory (database) or video card (view engine), and Node will run it all.

Challenges

Docs & Resources

1. Starting an Express Project
2. Express Hello World
3. Express Basic Routing
4. Express Static Files
5. Express res.render()

Basic Challenges

1. Install Node & NPM

   • Standalone installer: https://nodejs.org/download/

   • Homebrew: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/install-node-js-npm-mac

     1. Install Homebrew:

        ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

     2. Install node

        brew install node

2. Start an Express project called my-first-server (directions in first express doc link above)

3. Make a route to / that returns "Hello World" (directions in next express link above ... you get the idea)
4. Make a route to /hello/:name that returns "Hello NAME_FROM_URL".
   • Hint:

     app.get("/my_name_is/:name", function (req, res) {
      res.send( "My name is " + req.params.name );
     });
     

5. Give your server another route to /api/users and return an array of two users with names and ages. (hint: use res.json())
6. Give your server another route to /api/books and return an array of three books with titles.
7. Use a clone of a jQuery, Underscore, Bootstrap project you've already done to query and display your /api/books endpoint. (hint: use $.get('localhost:3000/api/books', function(data) {}))
8. Do this heroku deployment tutorial. The tutorial will provide you with a starter node project to push to heroku.
9. Now do what you did in the tutorial for your my-first-server project.
   • Start with git init (don't worry about putting a remote repo in github, we'll just push to heroku).
   • Skip the Prepare the App step - we're gonna use your app!
   • Do the Define a Procfile step before the Deploy the App step.
   • Make sure you're setting the port properly in the app.listen function before deploying:

     var server = app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000, function () {
      var host = server.address().address;
      var port = server.address().port;
      console.log('Example app listening at http://%s:%s', host, port);
     });
     

10. Now, point your jQuery, Underscore, Bootstrap project from your local url localhost:XXXX to your public heroku url YOUR_APP.herokuapp.com.

Homework

For homework we'll continue to work on the challenges above.

Important notes:

• Skip challenges 7 and 10.
• Heroku tutorial is only required up to the Push Local Changes step, no need to go farther.
• Focus on challenge 9, deploying your my_first_server app on heroku.

Submit the heroku url for your my_first_server app in the homework submission form. If you didn't get the my_first_server app up and running on heroku, please tell us how far you got in the submission form comments section.

Hooray

You've made your first server, and it's serving up a cool books/users API, and it's live on the web!